Daily Archives: May 3, 2021

12th Lemonade Day in the Fort Hood area this weekend – The Killeen Daily Herald

Posted: May 3, 2021 at 6:58 am

Saturday and Sunday, young entrepreneurs will have lemonade stands set up throughout the Fort Hood area to include Harker Heights, Killeen, Fort Hood, Copperas Cove and Belton in celebration of Lemonade Day.

Lemonade Day Weekend is a rain or shine event.

This weekend marks 12 years of Lemonade Day in the Fort Hood area. Lemonade Day participants have spent the last few months learning how to start, own and operate their own business a lemonade stand. Some youth will be set up in front of their homes, while others have asked permission of a local business to use their store front. On Lemonade Day, the cities of Harker Heights, Killeen and Copperas Cove allow Lemonade Day participants to set up in city parks as well. With their profits, participants are encouraged to spend a little, save a little, and give a little of their profits, according to a news release from Lemonade Day.

Lemonade Day is a free, community program dedicated to teaching children, pre-K through high school, how to start, own and operate their own business a lemonade stand. Lemonade Day is presented by First National Bank Texas and Fort Hood National Bank, along with Fort Hood Family Housing and local sponsor H-E-B. For more information about Lemonade Day, visit http://forthood.lemonadeday.org.

The community can view lemonade stand locations posted by participants on the Stand Locator Map. Visit forthood.lemonadeday.org and click the red Stands on the Map button. Potential customers can hover over each dot to view location details. The map is updated daily.

Here are some of the locations:

Bushs Chicken Cove, 112 W. Highway 190, in Copperas Cove

Hours: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday

Catching the Rainbow & LEGO Against Bullying, 1437 Lubbock Drive, in Copperas Cove

Hours: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday & Sunday

Dr. Seuss on the Loose Lemonade

Copperas Cove Leader Press, 2210 E. Business Highway 190, in Copperas Cove

Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Oceans Bounty Lemonade, High Seas for Heroes

Walgreens, 527 U.S. Highway 190, in Copperas Cove

Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

PX Exchange on Clear Creek, BLDG 4250, Clear Creek Road, in Fort Hood

Hours: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday

PX Exchange on Clear Creek, BLDG 4250, Clear Creek Road, in Fort Hood

Hours: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday

Samuels Real Dill Pickles, 51512-1 TAOS St., in Fort Hood

Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday

Songhai Youth Entrepreneurs

Twice as Funny Comedy Lounge, 4505 E. Veterans Memorial Blvd., in Killeen

Nutree Fitness, 503 N 38th St., in Killeen

Hours: noon to 5 p.m. Saturday

Miss B Lemonade & The 3 Bs Lemonade

Petco, 201 E Central Texas Expy., in Harker Heights

Hours: 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday

Triple Es Lemonade, 100 Mountain Lion Road, in Harker Heights

Hours: 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday

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12th Lemonade Day in the Fort Hood area this weekend - The Killeen Daily Herald

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Boat of 130 migrants sinks in the Mediterranean 22/04/2021 World KSU | The Sentinel Newspaper – KSU | The Sentinel Newspaper

Posted: at 6:58 am

At least ten bodies were found near the Libyan coast next to an inflatable boat that sank around 130 migrants on board in the Mediterranean Sea, according to information released Thursday by the NGO SOS Mditerrane (22).

Since our arrival on the site, we have not found any survivors, despite the fact that we saw at least ten bodies near the wreckage of the boat, explained in a note Luisa Albera, search and rescue coordinator on board. from Ocean Viking, the NGO humanitarian ship.

We have no hope of finding any survivors, said Emmanuelle Chaze, journalist part of the ships crew, in a telephone interview with the AFP news agency.

SOS Mditerrane received on Tuesday (20) an alert on the presence of three ships in international waters near the Libyan coast. The warning was sent by a group of volunteers who reported on migrants in difficulty on the high seas. Then, the Ocean Viking and freighters approached the area, despite the difficult sailing conditions, with heavy waves. six meters.

One of the merchant ships found three bodies of dead migrants, then a device from Frontex, the European border control agency, found the remains of the inflatable boat.

The routes from Africa to Europe via the Mediterranean have been strengthened in recent years, which does not prevent attempts on this route or across the Atlantic to the Canary Islands, for example.

In this case, the crossings can be as good or more dangerous as they are expensive. Fisherman Djiby Dieng, 21, told AFP news agency that the crossing generally costs between 150,000 and 300,000 CFA francs (1,400 to 2,800 reais) per person, an amount equivalent to more than two months income of a fisherman. In some cases, family and friends make a kitty to collect the money.

For his crossing, Dieng did not pay, as he made a deal to be one of the pilots. Travelers left the coast in small boats, which passed unnoticed among the dozens of fishing boats.

Then, on the high seas, they went to a large canoe, about 20 meters, where they would make the crossing. However, they are not always able to reach their destination. There were 131 of us. There were people of all ages, young, old. But we ran out of water and food. We had about 15 dehydrated people. So, near the Moroccan coast, we decided to stop, says Dieng.

This year alone, at least 453 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, most on the central route connecting the coasts of Tunisia and Libya to those of Italy.

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The Entwined History of Freedom and Racism – The Nation

Posted: at 6:58 am

Statue of Liberty in the Champ-de-Mars. (Hulton-Deutsch Collection / Getty)

Give us liberty and give them death, said David Duke at a rally for the Ku Klux Klan in Baton Rouge, La., in 1975. His thunderous words were a play on the famous quotation from Patrick Henry, Give me liberty or give me death. Henrys statement was intended to express his commitment to the well-known American ideal of freedom, which he and his peers took to be at stake in their forthcoming revolutionary struggle with the British Empire. But when Duke gave this speech as the Grand Dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, he had in mind another ideal with deep roots in American history: racial domination.Books in Review

The two men could hardly have more different legacies. Henry is venerated as a founding father, while Duke is reviled as a disgraceful bigot. But any attempt to delegitimize Dukes appropriation of Henrys words and the ideal they represent must also contend with an uncomfortable and inconvenient truth: The freedom that Henry, a plantation and slave owner, and his fellow founders took to be worth defending was also linked to the racial domination that organized life and labor in the American colonies. The revolution was a struggle for self-rule, but it also sought this self-rule in order to control the land conquered from Native Americans and the labor extorted from abducted Africans. It was a politics of freedom entwined, from the outset, with a politics of enslavement and exploitation.

Tyler Stovalls new book, White Freedom, attempts to answer the questions raised by this juxtaposition of Duke and Henry. How, he asks, can we square the acme of Western civilization, the ideal of liberty celebrated in the US and French republics, with its nadir, that of racial slavery, colonialism, and genocide? In plainer terms, How is it, as the English writer Samuel Johnson sardonically asked in 1775, the same year as Henrys address, that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of [enslaved] negroes?

Through painstaking and comprehensive historical research, Stovall addresses these questions by means of the concept named in his books title: white freedom. For centuries, he argues, writers, intellectuals, and politicians have tried various strategies to reconcile the United States and Frances brutal histories of racial domination, settler conquest, and slavery with their stated commitments to freedom. Many of these strategies have hinged on an attempt to use one to explain away the other. Those who defend the historical legacies of both countries insist that liberty is their true moral foundation; racism, colonialism, and slavery were transitory imperfections that the march of progress eventually brought to an end. Those who view them as irredeemable often contend the reverse: that racism is, as Stovall puts it, the true inescapable reality of Western culture and society. But as he demonstrates, at the heart of the two nations were both a commitment to liberty and a vision of society in which this liberty was unequally distributed and deeply racialized. The result was freedom for those at the top of the racial hierarchy, supported by and premised upon the unfreedom of those at the bottom.

According to Stovall, then, the dueling realities of freedom and slavery, liberty and domination, master and slave, are not just a clash of opposites; instead, they have been and continue to be counterparts in the making of modern history. To be free, Stovall notes, has long meant to be white, and to be white has conversely long meant to be free.

To explain the symbiotic relationship between racism and freedom, Stovall begins by charting the history of liberty and domination in modern North Atlantic history. His first chapter recounts the fascinating history of piracy, particularly in the Caribbean, including how the French and US republics sought to restrict the practice. Among the Caribbean piratesmany of whom had formerly been enslaveda rough racial democracy prevailed. Electing and removing their captains by the principle of one man, one vote, many of the pirate outfits were in fact more democratic than the republics from which they stole. But the pirates self-government and their freedom at sea also threatened French and US sovereignty: They attacked shipping lanes key to transatlantic commerce; they made coastal territories vulnerable; and their sense of democratic equality posed a challenge to the republics racial hierarchies both at home and abroad. For the US and French republics to ensure their reigns, the pirates and their savage freedom had to be eliminated.

The drive to develop navies and eliminate piracy on the high seas also came home to roost. Much as the United States and France sought to suppress the pirates, Stovall contends, they sought to dominate and control the children in their own countries, and they did so in the name of a new form of freedom: one defined not by bucking formal power structures (as the pirates did) but by respecting them. Resistant to authoritarian control, the teenager and the pirate alike needed to be introduced to new forms of disciplinesystems of domination that American and French society insisted enabled new forms of liberty.Current Issue

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Out of this new definition of freedom also came, Stovall notes, a racialization of those deemed not worthy to receive it. On the one hand was a freedom defined by savagery and subalterns; on the other was a set of natural liberties and rights owed only to adult white Europeans, whether they lived in America or in Europe. As colonization and the Atlantic slave trade both expanded, they became even more integral to justifying the regimes of domination and violence erected by those republics in the pursuit of freedom.

This new notion of freedom was not only racialized but gendered and then also domesticated. While the French revolutionary symbol known as Marianne is famously depicted in Eugne Delacroixs painting Liberty Leading the People as a bare-chested woman wielding a musket and bayonet in the violence against the old regime, her descendant the Statue of Libertygiven to the United States by Franceoffers a contrasting depiction of liberty: a serene, robed woman holding a torch rather than a weapon. Freedom, yes, Lady Liberty tells us, but a pacified form of it.

Stovall then turns to the way this new domesticated and racialized mode of freedom fit into the peculiar double movement of world politics over the 18th and 19th centuries. While liberal democracy and expanded social freedoms began to extend throughout the domestic spheres of American and European republics like the United States and France, these same powers expanded their authoritarian colonial control over much of the rest of the world.

How could these nations reconcile their valorization of self-government with their actual practices of slavery and colonialismthe ultimate forms of government by others? This is where Stovalls earlier story about how freedom became racialized in the 18th and 19th centuries intersects with his story about how freedom became the province of the few and not the many. Racism helped square the circle: The right and privilege of self-government was linked to what was perceived as Europeans unique capacity for rational thought. As John Stuart Mill put it in On Liberty, the doctrine of liberty ought to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. Despotism, on the other hand, was a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement.

In France, the tensions between the new republics commitment to freedom and its actual violence and domination were well represented by the Marquis de Condorcet. The fiery French radical was one of slaverys most vociferous European foes, yet he also opposed the immediate emancipation of the enslaved. As with the American founding fathers, slavery as a metaphor for unfreedom was a clear and present evil, but on the actual social institution that structured the lives of Africans throughout the French Empire, Condorcet and his fellow abolitionists demanded a bit of nuance. The Society for the Friends of the Blacks, of which he was a member, attempted to get the National Assembly to pass a motion to end French participation in the slave trade, but it stopped short of an attempt to end the slave trade itself. Stovall reports that Condorcet also insisted that enslaved Black people were unprepared for emancipation and that he ultimately foresaw freedom coming to blacks when they merged with and disappeared into the white population through miscegenation.

Condorcet and the French radicals were not alone. Most of the Enlightenments intellectuals, from Immanuel Kant to the physician Franois Bernier, offered elaborate theories that affirmed the right to freedom for white Europeans while simultaneously producing cutting-edge racial science. Kant, for instance, wrote that there was only one innate right, freedom, which meant independence from being constrained by anothers choice. Yet he also wrote approvingly of a critique of a proposal to free Black slaves, since they lacked the mental capacity to be good laborers without being coerced into activity. Likewise, he regarded Native people in North America as incapable of any culture and far below even the Negro in their adaptability and strength. The embrace of freedom and the embrace of racism were complementary positions, not contradictory ones: The case for freedom for Europeans was also the case for unfreedom for the rest of the world.

In the United States, Thomas Jefferson perhaps best embodied this vision of freedom, even if there were many other contenders, such as Patrick Henry. In 1776, Jefferson famously wrote the Declaration of Independence, which held that all men are created equal and endowed with an inalienable right to liberty, even though he owned more than 600 human beingssurely some sort of conflict, should we take his words literally. He also wrote, in 1781, Notes on the State of Virginia, which held that Black Americansfree or enslavedshould be removed beyond the reach of mixture. It is not against experience to suppose, Jefferson argued, that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications. Will not a lover of natural history then, one who views the gradations in all the races of animals with the eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those in the department of man as distinct as nature has formed them? This unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people.

Whether in Condorcets France or Jeffersons America, racism servedrather transparentlyto justify those political institutions that were sharply and clearly opposed to the letter of the principles being invoked to legitimate them. By naturalizing European superiority, Stovall shows, Jefferson, Condorcet, and other thinkers could justify a system of freedom for some while complacently accepting the domination of many othersand the white in white freedom was societys way of organizing who played which role.

Some may argue that the examples of Jefferson, Condorcet, and the rest imply that racial domination boils down to errors in thinking about race and justice, or that white freedom is merely an inconsistency in reasoning from abstract ideals and principles to concrete political questions. But what drove the formation of republican freedom and its racialized forms of enslavement and colonization was material more than ideational. These thinkers were explaining an economic, political, and military stratification of society that already existed and that had not waited for such justifications. After all, by the time they were writing, the European empires had been amassing wealth through enslaved labor for several generations. These men were offering highbrow justifications of this system of exploitation only to make it palatable to polite society. As Aim Csaire explained in his classic Discourse on Colonialism, killing and plunder tend to come first and the slavering apologists later. The conquistadors spent vastly more effort justifying themselves with sword and bullet; putting a flattering rhetorical cloak on naked plunder was a pressing concern only for later generations.

Despite Stovalls focus on cultural and intellectual history, this primacy of violent domination proves to be a central theme in White Freedom, and in his final chapters he pays close attention to how the Wests pursuit of political power and profits has proved more historically decisive than the doctrines of liberty and racism that its intellectuals devised to justify this pursuit. Britain and France saw World War I, for example, not as a struggle to end imperial domination but as an opportunity to expand itso long as they were the ones doing the dominating. In the midst of fierce battles in France and what is now Iraq, they signed the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement to divide the Ottoman Empire between them at the wars end. This did not stop many nations from seeking to free themselves from this domination after the war, as national liberation struggles and revolts erupted from India to Ireland. Nevertheless, the conclusion of World War I marked a return to a politics that saw freedom as an ideal for some but not all. In 1919, in the Punjabi town of Amritsar, British colonial troops raked protesters with machine gun fire, killing hundreds, rather than allow a demonstration against their rule. In Korea, millions of people organized against Japanese colonialism, prompting a similarly violent response that claimed thousands of lives, while in France, the government resorted to the mass deportation of exotic Chinese laborers from its colonies throughout the Caribbean and Africa, replacing them with workers from southern and eastern Europe. During the same year in the United States, there was widespread racial violence and terrorism, especially against returning Black veterans, who were more assertive of their right to self-rule than white freedom could countenance. The summer after the wars conclusion was known in the United States as the Red Summer for its massive wave of violence nationwide, as white mobs looked to restore the racial order.

For Stovall, this march of white freedom continued into World War II and the Cold War years. Nazi Germany sought to expand its empire while also racially purifying its society at home, and it did so under the banner of freedom for the German Volkproviding one of the books most powerful and persuasive demonstrations of the complementary relationship between freedom and race.

Looking to the model of racial domination developed by the United States, the Third Reich passed the Nuremberg Laws, which installed racialized tiers of legal protections, stripping German Jews of their citizenship and barring sex and marriage between Germans and non-Germans. This program of racialization and marginalization eventually culminated in the death campswhich also drew on techniques of genocide the German Empire had used in Namibiawhere millions of Europes Jews, a half million of its Romani, and others targeted for their sexual or gender identity or physical or mental disabilities perished. In this way, the Nazis brought home to Europe the violence and racial subjugation that the European powers had practiced in their colonies, in what Hannah Arendt called the boomerang effect of imperialism.

The defeat of the Third Reich represented a powerful blow to this nakedly racist and authoritarian conception of white freedom. As Stovall shows, however, the postwar consensus that arose out of the Allies victory posed another challenge to realizing a vision of freedom cut loose from racism. President Harry Truman presided over the ascendant nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which cast themselves as representatives of the free world against the captive nations of the Soviet sphere. But this program of freedom curiously failed to include the captive nations of the British and French empiresnations that, as Stovall points out, were not referred to as nations at all.

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These captive nations, however, had their own conception of freedom and were willing to fight for it. Figures like Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere challenged the Wests continued embrace of racial domination with a demand for freedom from empire. This led, Stovall writes, to one of the most dramatic series of events in modern world history, as the number of member states of the United Nations swelled from 55 in 1946 to more than double that by 1965, the vast majority of them former colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. World War II and its political aftermath challenged the idea of white freedom to an unprecedented degree in modern history, he concludes. A new conception of freedom, cut loose from its racialized origins, began to proliferate, even if it remained threatened by both the former imperial powers of Europe and the ascendant one in the United States.

While the concept of white freedom is Stovalls, the subject of how freedom and race are entwined is not new. Carole Patemans insightful analysis of the gender domination inherent to the liberal social compact in The Sexual Contract inspired a similar analysis by Charles Mills in his 1994 book The Racial Contract, which considered how the social compact that safeguards liberal freedoms is also composed of several other compacts that protect the freedom of white people to dominate and exploit the nonwhite peoples of the world. Radical political theorists like Neville Alexander, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Oliver Cox made their own cases for how liberal freedom had become racialized, insisting that, contrary to what many claim, the social structure and political ideals of liberal democracies can coexist with racial domination.

Outside the academy, the critical notion of white freedom has influenced much of the Black activism of the past century to the present day. Ida B. Wells, for instance, outlined many of the same connections between freedom and race. In her turn-of-the-century speech Lynch Law in America, she rejected a description of lynching as the sudden outburst of an insane mob, characterizing it instead as the cool, calculating deliberation of intelligent people who openly avow that there is an unwritten law, above and beyond the written law, that allows and even demands violence against Black and Indigenous people, while reserving the freedom-preserving written law for whites.

Half a century later, Aim Csaire and an ascendant generation of anticolonial activists leveled similar accusations at the French Empire and the broader constellation of Western powers that enabled it, with Csaire writing that the great thing he held against such pseudo-humanism is that its very concept of human rights is sordidly racist.

While Stovalls account of freedom and race is a compelling one, he might have done more with this deeper critical tradition, if only because so many of its advocates put forth visions of a freedom liberated from the shackles of racism. For example, along with the Caribbean pirates and Frances Marianne, he might have considered how maroon society and the liberated colonies offered alternative conceptions of emancipation. While Stovall provides a thoughtful answer to the question What does it mean for freedom to be white?, the reader may also want one to the question What does it mean for freedom not to be white?

Nonetheless, White Freedoms strengths resonate far more than its weaknesses. The book is a treasure trove of historical detail, but its also written clearly and persuasively, such that the overarching themes of race and freedom consistently ring louder than the minutiae. Its focus also helps Stovall to provide a coherent narrative about a political history of multiple countries spanning multiple centuries. His history of American and French racial politics outside of their domestic sphere is commendable, making these empires accountable for their total domains of control and influence, including their oft-ignored colonial endeavors and effects on global politics.

White Freedom is also a worthy addition to the recent surge of work rethinking the connection between race and other fundamental aspects of our social system, from the discussions of The New York Times 1619 Project and critical race theory to leftist debates about racial capitalism. The recent global protests against racism and police violence suggest that these issues may continue to powerfully shape politics for quite some time.

Stovall concludes with a juxtaposition of two US presidents: Ronald Reagan, who demanded in 1987 that the Berlin Wall be torn down in the interest of freedom, and Donald Trump, who demandedalong with the House Freedom Caucusthat the United States build a wall along its border with Mexico. In both cases, freedom represented a specific vision: a social order dominated by the United States. Reagans speech called for the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the rise of a new world order of unregulated capitalism upon which white freedom was built. In the ensuing era of unchallenged capitalism, Trump sought to build a wall that would free Americans from the burden of sharing their zones of wealth and domination with the Global South.

White freedom, Stovall reminds us, has a history, but it is no mere historical idea: Its defenders inherit a balance of power and the political advantages that centuries of white freedom have helped shape. But we inheritors of a different legacythe efforts of those who forced white freedom into key retreats over the past centuries, thereby increasing the political freedoms of most of the people on this planetare also alive and well. As the late Nipsey Hussle once said, You build walls, we gon prolly dig holes.

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The Entwined History of Freedom and Racism - The Nation

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This is how they managed to capture images of the ‘kraken’ after centuries of searching Explica .co – Explica

Posted: at 6:58 am

The mystery surrounding the elusive giant squid has fed popular folklore stories for centuries such as that of the famous kraken, the colossal sea creature that attacked ships on the high seas. However, the reality is quite different, since these cephalopods such as Architeuthis dux, the largest known species, are very difficult to observe.

Research recently published in the journal Deep Sea Research tries to explain why these giants of the deep sea are so elusive and shows how a team of scientists managed to film the first images of this species in its natural habitat in 2012 in Japan and later in 2019 in the Gulf of Mexico.

The study authors, some of whom were present at the 2019 sighting, argue that these creatures are elusive due, in part, to their huge eyes.

In the depths of the ocean where these squids live, hardly any sunlight penetrates, so this cephalopod developed the biggest eyes of the animal kingdom, the size of a basketball, reports Live Science.

These eyes, apt to roam the darkness of the ocean, also make them more sensitive to lights that marine researchers incorporate into their submersibles and cameras, which is why it is so difficult to find giant squid in their natural habitats.

In order to capture this animal, the researchers who participated in the successful experiments of 2012 and 2019 they turned off the lights on their submersible upon reaching the desired sea depths, which allowed these squid to approach the apparatus.

In addition, the team illuminated his camera with a dim red light instead of the white one that is usually used for expeditions of this type. The use of red light may therefore be a less obtrusive method of illuminating deep-sea species, the authors indicate in the study.

The scientists also decided to use a lure with blue light nicknamed E-Jelly that mimicked the movement and glow of a bioluminescent jellyfish to further attract squid to them.

The researchers conclude that this method of combining low-light equipment with bioluminescent baits has been shown to the most effective to get the giant squid out of hiding and can be filmed.

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This is how they managed to capture images of the 'kraken' after centuries of searching Explica .co - Explica

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Here’s a Long-Lasting Mother’s Day gift – Mint Hill Times

Posted: at 6:57 am

MINT HILL, NC Mothers Day has almost arrived, so you may want to give Mom flowers or candy. But is there a gift that can make a longer-term difference in her life?

Actually, there is the gift of knowledge for her financial future.

To be specific, you may be able to help your mother in two key areas: long-term care and estate planning.

You dont need any expertise in either of these topics. But you can let your mother know that the cost of long-term care, such as a stay in a nursing home, can be significant and could impact her financial independence. And without a comprehensive estate plan, she might not be able to leave the type of inheritance she had envisioned.

So, you can help your mother by steering her toward a financial professional, who can suggest long-term care solutions, and a legal professional, who can help with her estate planning.

Offering this support can help keep Mom in a good place in life and thats a pretty valuable gift.

If you have any questions, please contact me at (980) 859-2549 or by e-mail at Brandon.Monette@edwardjones.com

This article was written by Edward Jones for use by your local Edward Jones Financial Advisor.

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Here's a Long-Lasting Mother's Day gift - Mint Hill Times

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The controversial amendments to the SBP Act – DAWN.com

Posted: at 6:57 am

Nothing seems to hurt Pakistanis more on a daily basis than inflation. Indeed, it is a country where many have to skip a meal at times. That is why one wonders why there is such a polarised debate on the proposed amendments to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Act, 1956, which seek to focus the SBP on domestic price stability and enhance the independence and protections for those entrusted with running it.

The proposed amendments seek to change both the objectives and the functions of the SBP. Domestic price stability is to become the primary objective of the SBP, followed by financial stability, and then support for the governments economic policies to foster development.

There will be tighter restrictions on government borrowing from the SBP. The Monetary and Fiscal Board shall be discontinued and replaced with direct coordination between the finance minister and the governor.

A misplaced debate

Whenever an institution is required to do its job free of interference from politics and special interest groups, institutional autonomy is essential. Indeed, financial independence, operational autonomy and/or legal protections to the office bearers are already included in the SBP Act and that of other regulatory authorities.

The central bank would have a much better chance of managing inflation if domestic price stability is its primary function

Consider for instance section 3(3) of the Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan Act, 1997: The Commission shall be administratively, financially and functionally independent and the federal government shall use its best efforts to promote, enhance and maintain the independence of the Commission.

The SBPs website notes: Under financial sector reforms, the State Bank of Pakistan was granted autonomy in February 1994, and section 46B(2) of the SBP Act makes a clear reference to the banks autonomy. Over the years, there have been a series of amendments to the SBP Act and the proposed amendments are neither the first nor the last. One way or the other, the federal government will have a say regarding who is appointed for a key position.

There is nothing unprecedented about the autonomy amendments. For instance, one can find various examples of a five-year renewable term for the governor of the central bank, such as Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. A 2009 report by the Bank of International Settlements shows that of the 47 central banks analysed, only 6 per cent had a three- to four-years term for the governor whereas 64pc had a five- to six-years term.

It is well known in Pakistan that the fear of hounding by agencies encourages the civil bureaucracy to avoid taking decisions and it makes sense to protect actions taken in good faith. Our problem isnt that we dont provide legal protections to office-bearers but that these protections do not withstand the test of time. It was as recent as May 2019 when despite the three-year term provided in the current SBP Act, the governor at the time was forced to resign. In this sense, the debate on SBPs autonomy is fundamentally misplaced.

The relevant debate is how to enhance the independence and autonomy of not just the SBP but all the other pertinent bodies in the country, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, Competition Commission, Higher Education Commission and so on.

An uneasy balance

A typical companys CEO is appointed by its board, he/she is accountable to the board and risks losing his/her job if (s)he fails to meet the performance targets typically around profitability. But traditional corporate governance does not fit the central bank and regulators that are meant to work in the public interest. In such cases, there is an inherently uneasy balance between accountability and autonomy.

Critics of the amendments are overlooking the fact that there is no hard accountability in the current SBP Act either. Consider that if the governor SBP had a direct reporting line to the finance minister with hire and fire authority, it would be seen as forcing the central bank to follow the whims of the minister. That would defeat the very purpose of separating the monetary policy from the government.

Another factor complicating things is that within central banks and regulatory authorities, performance can be difficult to measure and attribute. This is why accountability measures for central banks and regulators are transparency measures. Examples include presenting to parliament and answering questions, publishing reports on the state of the economy, releasing minutes of meetings, holding press conferences and being subject to a microscopic analysis by the financial markets.

The debate continues

The current SBP Act refers to monetary stability, which could be interpreted to include inflation. There are repeated references to inflation in the opening paragraphs of the SBPs monetary policy statements and the context suggests inflation is very much on the minds of those issuing these statements. That SBP should move to inflation targeting was being debated by the SBP staff for well over a decade.

According to a publication by an economist from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 38 central banks from across the world including both developed and developing countries were practising inflation targeting as of 2015. It is also not unusual for some central banks to practice implicit inflation targeting and the US Federal Reserve is believed to be doing the same.

If the amendments are approved, the SBP would follow a disclosed target range, presumably set by the National Economic Council, for inflation and raise or lower interest rates to steer actual inflation towards the target range. Conventional economics assumes that raising interest rates is likely to cool off the economy and slow down both demand and thereby inflation and vice versa.

But economics, also called the dismal science, is just not physics. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Andrew Lo explains that contrary to physics, in economics, there are 99 laws to explain 3pc of the phenomena. Inflation targeting emerged in the 1990s when, contrary to what was believed earlier, economists became convinced monetary policy had an impact on inflation. As you would expect, the empirical studies for and against inflation targeting remain divided but it appears that IMF favours it.

When inflation targeting influences inflation, it does so indirectly and with a lag. In a country like Pakistan, there are many factors affecting inflation that have little to do with monetary policy, such as currency devaluation, cartelization, inefficiency in energy production and distribution. It is well near impossible to quantify and attribute how much inflation was caused by what reason. Having said that, the SBP would have a much better chance of managing inflation if domestic price stability is its primary function.

The writer is a former CEO of the Audit Oversight Board and Executive Director at the Securities and Exchange Commission

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, May 3rd, 2021

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This man became financially independent at 36 and says the key to happiness is ‘owning your own time’ The Madison Leader Gazette – The Madison Leader…

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Chad grew up watching his father flip properties. Now, thanks to those lessons in real estate, hes financially independent, managing rental units and living life on his terms.

The 39-year-old landlord, who was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, reached $1 million Canadian dollars, or approximately US$791,000, in 2019, though he felt he had reached financial independence even sooner. That year, he left his full-time job. Along with his real-estate investments, he invests in the stock market.

Chad found the FIRE Movement, made it to $1 million CAD before 40, and became a firefighter and sheepherder along the way.

The former network administrator and his partner, Catherine, who is a Ph.D. student and research coordinator, save between 50% and 80% of their income every year and live off of $27,000 in annual expenses. With his financial independence, theyre able to travel with their dog, Pepper, but he still works as an IT consultant while managing the rental properties and other side hustles. In his spare time, he also volunteers with the local fire department.

See: A new law would require employees to save for retirement

One of the keys to happiness is owning your own time, he said. Financial independence has gifted him the ability to craft his own schedule, and not rely on a job to pursue his interests. For example, along with his side gigs and volunteer work, he is a sheepherder.

Of course, there are caveats to using real estate as a major stream of income. There could be rent loss as many landlords have experienced in this pandemic or some sort of emergency or damage to the home. A prolonged vacancy could be detrimental, so landlords have to balance a complete loss of income or decide to offer the unit for a lower price. Its just calculations figuring what youre comfortable with, he said.

But there are also ways to maximize earnings with real estate. Part of his success comes down to his hands-on approach with his rentals. He renovates his properties, including painting garages, installing heated flooring, redoing bathrooms and creating wooden wall panels.

Also see: Get triple the tax benefits with an HSA, and find an affordable health plan while youre at it

When he had to replace the refrigerator in one of his properties, instead of hiring a professional to deliver the new appliance and discard the old one, he did it himself bringing in the new fridge with his truck, fixing the old one and selling it for $100. You can still fix things and make a few bucks too, he said.

Convenience is one of the biggest budget killers. We spend a lot on convenience, he said. We can make our own food but its much easier to pick up the phone and have it delivered. Living two hours away from his rental units might seem like an inconvenience when he needs to do a repair, but he spends the time driving into the city by listening to a book. I like road trips, he said.

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Second Lady Fetterman and Senate Democrats talk fighting food insecurity in the commonwealth – FOX43.com

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PENNSYLVANIA, USA Second Lady Giselle Fetterman joined Senate Democrats and experts on Friday to talk about fighting food insecurity in the commonwealth.

Officials say that food insecurity has skyrocketed amid the pandemic saying it likely doubled in Philadelphia over the past year.

That issue has seen an increase in people looking for aid, both from food banks and snaps benefits.

Officials said so much more needs to be done especially because people are not getting the help they need.

"Where I see the biggest gap, and we see the biggest gap at Einstein is these programs that remove barriers, any program that helps removes barriers like SNAP, programs where there's barriers for people to sign up wherever we can remove those," said Dixie James, president of Einstein Healthcare.

Leaders talked about fixing "now" problems and getting people food where they need it as well as "later" problems by helping people gain financial independence and make enough money to get out of poverty.

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Review: ‘Stowaway’ redefines space exploration with emotional depth – The Daily Titan

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While much of the world celebrated the beauty of nature for Earth Day on April 22, movie fans strapped in for a launch with Netflixs newest space exploration suspense film, Stowaway. Adventures into space have a long history in Hollywood, but this newest addition starring Anna Kendrick captures a unique side of space exploration with heartfelt moments, realistic themes and beautiful acting that is simply out of this world.

Director and writer Joe Penna is no stranger to survival stories. Fans will recognize his name from the rolling credits of the 2018 film Arctic, which told a story of a man who was stranded in the Arctic and forced to find a way to live. Stowaway unmistakably embraces Pennas signature portrayal of human survival against catastrophic odds.

The film makes no apologies for its quick introduction, opening with a launch sequence that makes it clear that Earth will not be the main setting in this storyline. Viewers learn that Zoe Levenson, played by Anna Kendrick, commander Marina Barnett, played by Toni Collette, and David Kim, played by Daniel Dae Kim, are on their way to Mars for a two-year mission funded by a company called Hyperion.

Zoe is a bright-eyed doctor whose compassion, light-hearted attitude and emotional depth make her a shining star throughout the film. David is a level-headed biologist and a realist, making him an interesting character in life-threatening situations, and Marina is a disappointing, two-dimensional character who often doesnt contribute to the meaningful atmosphere created by Kendrick and Kims characters.

True to its title, the ship has a stowaway Michael Adams, played by Shamier Anderson. Michael is found trapped in the ships interior, an introduction that leaves viewers with an endless list of questions. Its clear from his distress after waking up that Michael did not stowaway on purpose, and his concussion keeps viewers from getting a clear idea of what really happened.

The mystery begins, but every mystery needs suspense and this movie knows exactly how to build it. Michaels entrance damages one of the carbon dioxide scrubbers, leaving enough oxygen for two people. With four people on the ship, David sacrifices his research to create more oxygen with algae, but that only affords them one more supply of oxygen. There are four people on the ship, but someone has to die to keep everyone else alive a notion that Zoe cant accept.

The suspense of this knowledge is brilliantly laced throughout the cinematography of the film. In a situation that is burdened by the immobile weight of mortality, Penna emphasizes that words are meaningless in that situation and employs a more powerful tool silence.

The film embraces the silence of space as the characters go through their days, allowing the gravity of the circumstances to take center stage. In phone calls to Earth, viewers hear one-sided conversations from the perspectives of different people on the ship, effectively expressing the crews isolation and emotional exhaustion from feeling unheard by the people on Earth.

Embedded into the quiet of the film are also moments of dialogue that fill the space with palpable emotions and intense character connections. At times, the dialogue can feel overdone when every little detail is explained by the characters directly, but other moments exhibit a brilliant chemistry between the actors. Anderson and Kendrick share moments that are not only emotionally expressive, but they also perfectly develop the characters with a simple and elegant style of storytelling.

If classic Hollywood cinema has made one thing clear, its that every space blockbuster involves a dangerous trip into the abyss of a star-filled sky, and Stowaway is no exception to this golden rule of movie magic. The characters anxiety is skillfully captured in the musical themes and the suspense of life-threatening situations. Add breathtaking camera work to that suspense, and Penna beautifully depicts the rare duality of space a fine line between its brutal inhospitality and the allure of its grace.

As viewers fall into the storyline, its safe to say that all eyes will be glued to the screen for the entire movie. Whether it's the light-hearted moments of laughter or the gripping emotional dialogues, this script makes it impossible to not be intrigued by every scene. If viewers are looking for a deep dive into emotion, this is the right movie, and the anxiety will keep hearts racing until the last moment.

However, viewers should know that this film is satisfied with leaving questions unanswered a frustrating story technique that might have people yelling at the rolling credits. To be fair, the mystery of the ending falls completely in line with Pennas theme about the complexity of survival and the intersection between morality and mortality there is no easy answer and there will always be questions.

Despite its flaws, Stowaway positively contributes to an extensive era of space exploration films. The chemistry of the cast combined with the beautiful cinematography makes for a contemplative storyline that properly explores the danger of space, the power of human connection and the importance of doing the right thing. Theres something alluring about launching into space, and there is no doubt that movie fans should join the crew for this heartfelt adventure.

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It is an exciting time for our space program: Harris to lead National Space Council – FOX 13 Tampa Bay

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Ingenuity: NASAs first aircraft on Mars

NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter will make history's first attempt at powered flight on another planet. (Source: NASA)

WASHINGTON - Vice President Kamala Harris announced Saturday that she will accept her role to lead the National Space Council and further the countys mission in space exploration.

"As I've said before: In America, when we shoot for the moon, we plant our flag on it," she tweeted. "I am honored to lead our National Space Council."

"The Vice President is the perfect person to lead the federal government's space policy, which is increasingly complex, with many nations in space," NASA administrator and former Sen. Bill Nelson said in a statement.

RELATED: Astronaut Michael Collins, part of Apollo 11 crew, dies at 90

"Vice President Lyndon Johnson was the first chair of the National Space Council when America initially ventured beyond Earth. Now, Vice President Harris will coordinate our nations efforts to ensure America continues to lead in space. It is an exciting time for our space program," Nelson continued.

The NASA JPL team cheers as they receive video data from the rover of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flight.

According to FOX News, The National Space Council was created in 1989 during the George H.W. Bush administration. It was scrapped in 1993 soon after Bill Clinton took office and brought back in Donald Trumps first year as president. Former Vice President Mike Pence was put in charge of the committee.

President Joe Biden announced he would keep the council intact last month.

The National Space Council is part of the Executive Office of the President that oversees and develops policies reflecting the countrys interests in the space industry.

RELATED: Rockville High School grad worked on Mars helicopter flight

One of the councils latest goals is completing NASAs Artemis program. It includes sending U.S. astronauts back to the moon, including the countrys first woman, by March 2024 as well as building a permanent base on the moons south pole.

Its unclear when the council will hold its first meeting.

This story was reported from Los Angeles.

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